Bacula
Bacula is a set of
computer programs for the backup, recovery, and verification of
computer data across a network of computers of different kinds.
Bacula is relatively easy to use and efficient, while offering
many advanced storage management features that make it easy to find and
recover lost or damaged files.
Bacula is made up of the following five major components or
services: Director, Console, File, Storage, and Monitor services.
The Bacula Director service supervises
all the backup, restore, verify and archive operations.
The Bacula Console service allows the administrator or user to
communicate with the Bacula Director
Currently, the Bacula Console is available in three versions:
text-based console interface, GNOME-based
interface, and a wxWidgets graphical interface.
The Bacula File service (also known as the Client program) is
installed on the machine to be backed
up. The Bacula Storage services consist of the software
programs that perform the storage and recovery of the file attributes
and data to the physical backup media or volumes.
The Catalog services are comprised of the software programs
responsible for maintaining the file indexes and volume databases for
all files backed up.
Features include:
- Backup and restore clients of any type ensuring that all
attributes of files are properly saved and restored.
- Multi-volume backups supported.
- A full comprehensive SQL standard database of all files
backed up. This permits online viewing of files saved on any particular
Volume.
- Automatic pruning of the database (removal of old records)
thus simplifying database administration.
- Any SQL database engine can be used making Bacula very
flexible. Drivers currently exist for MySQL,
PostgreSQL,
and SQLite.
- Built-in Job scheduler.
- Rescue CD for Linux systems
Features in more detail:
- Job Control
- Network backup/restore with centralized Director.
- Internal scheduler for automatic Job execution.
- Scheduling of multiple Jobs at the same time.
- You may run one Job at a time or multiple simultaneous
Jobs (sometimes called multiplexing).
- Job sequencing using priorities.
- Console interface to the Director allowing complete
control. A shell, GNOME
GUI and wxWidgets GUI versions of the Console
program are available. Note, the GNOME
GUI program currently offers
very few additional features over the shell program. With version
2.2.0, a much more complete GUI interface has been written, which is
called the Bacula Admistration Tool, or bat.
- Security
- Verification of files previously cataloged, permitting
a Tripwire like capability (system break-in detection).
- CRAM-MD5 password authentication between each component
(daemon).
- Configurable TLS (SSL) communications encryption
between each component.
- Configurable Data (on Volume) encryption on a Client by
Client basis.
- Computation of MD5 or SHA1 signatures of the file data
if requested.
- Restore Features
- Restore of one or more files selected interactively
either for the current backup or a backup prior to a specified time and
date.
- Restore of a complete system starting from bare metal.
This is mostly automated for Linux systems and partially automated for
Solaris. See Disaster Recovery Using Bacula. This is also reported to
work on Win2K/XP systems.
- Listing and Restoration of files using stand-alone bls
and bextract tool
programs. Among other things,
this permits extraction of files when Bacula and/or the catalog are not
available. Note, the recommended way to restore files is using the
restore command in the Console. These programs are designed for use as
a last resort.
- Ability to restore the catalog database rapidly by
using bootstrap files (previously saved).
- Ability to recreate the catalog database by scanning
backup Volumes using the bscan program.
- SQL Catalog
- Catalog database facility for remembering Volumes,
Pools, Jobs, and Files backed up.
- Support for MySQL,
PostgreSQL,
and SQLite Catalog
databases.
- User extensible queries to the MySQL,
PostgreSQL
and
SQLite databases.
- Advanced Volume and Pool Management
- Labeled Volumes, preventing accidental overwriting (at
least by Bacula).
- Any number of Jobs and Clients can be backed up to a
single Volume. That is, you can backup and restore Linux, Unix, Sun,
and Windows machines to the same Volume.
- Multi-volume saves. When a Volume is full, Bacula
automatically requests the next Volume and continues the backup.
- Pool and Volume library management providing Volume
flexibility (e.g. monthly, weekly, daily Volume sets, Volume sets
segregated by Client, ...).
- Machine independent Volume data format. Linux, Solaris,
and Windows clients can all be backed up to the same Volume if desired.
- The Volume data format is upwards compatible so that
old Volumes can always be read.
- A flexible message handler including routing of
messages from any daemon back to the Director and automatic email
reporting.
- Data spooling to disk during backup with subsequent
write to tape from the spooled disk files. This prevents tape "shoe
shine" during Incremental/Differential backups.
- Advanced Support for most Storage Devices
- Autochanger support using a simple shell interface that
can interface to virtually any autoloader program. A script for mtx
is provided.
- Support for autochanger barcodes -- automatic tape
labeling from barcodes.
- Automatic support for multiple autochanger magazines
either using barcodes or by reading the tapes.
- Support for multiple drive autochangers.
- Raw device backup/restore. Restore must be to the same
device.
- All Volume blocks (approximately 64K bytes) contain a
data checksum.
- Migration support -- move data from one Pool to another
or one Volume to another.
- Supports writing to DVD.
- Miscellaneous
- Multi-threaded implementation.
- A comprehensive and extensible configuration file for
each daemon.
Return
to Backup Home Page
Bacula also features in our 'Linux
Equivalents to Windows Software' section. The category
chooser below allows you to focus on different types of software
included in that section.
Last Updated Sunday, April 21 2013 @ 04:57 PM EDT
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